A coalition of northern leaders, professionals and businessmen are calling for an immediate review of the revenue allocation law, describing the present formula as “obnoxious, lopsided and unfair to all Nigerians.”
They also claim oil producing states themselves are victims because the revenue accruing to them is far beyond their capacity to manage.
The coalition which met on Thursday in Abuja under the aegis of the northern coalition said “the revenue allocation law consequently encourages corruption and hyper-inflation in the oil-producing states, its neighbours and the country at large.”
According to statement from the convener of the meeting Dr Junaid Mohammed, the existing revenue allocation formula violates a subsisting judgment of the Supreme Court as well as the international Law Of Sea Convention (LOSC), which stipulates that “oil and all forms of wealth found on the continental shelf or the international sea bed must belong to the countries and not just to administrative/political units (littoral states) adjoining the physical sea.
The statement reads “the law is an encouragement to the political class to ignore the ecological devastation as a consequence of oil-related activities while financing and encouraging terrorist agitation and criminality in that part of Nigeria for political blackmail, extortion and ransom”.
The meeting condemned the practice of awarding oil blocks and crude oil lifting’s to top Generals, cronies of parties or persons in power and fraudsters and it called for the revocations of all the oil blocks and oil lifting contracts and urge a comprehensive review of all manner of refined products import contracts.
It also demanded that all Generals and dishonest businessmen, local chiefs and war-lords involved in criminal bunkering must be identified, arrested and effectively prosecuted.
Third term allegation
The Committee also noted with concern and alleged the going-on in the constitutional amendment committee set up by the Federal Government under the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Alfa Belgore, is “pursuing sinister third term agenda/renewed tenure elongation for the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.”
It claimed that effort by Justice Belgore (RTD) and other hirelings of the and the Villa is to “create a so-called NEW Constitution that paves the way for Jonathan to again contest the presidential election in 2015 for a single term of Seven (7) years, that is, in addition to his current Four (4) years to the nearly Two (2) years he had served of the Yar’Adua Presidency.”
The group claimed that this has divided the committee with Belgore opposing the plan.
They concluded that “the whole country with the North as its head will rise to oppose this mischief.”
The coalition also warned that in any future constitutional amendment exercise, the North will demand that the future status of Abuja must be at the heart of that discussion, claiming it is the generational inheritance of the north. “The paid agitators of a Sovereign National Conference should get prepared” they added.